Warren Ellis’ Gun Machine Headed to Television?

Variety is reporting that Warren Ellis’ new novel, Gun Machine has been optioned by Fox Television.

Fox has put in development Gun Machine, a drama based on the upcoming novel of the same name by top comic book writer Warren Ellis. The TV series adaptation, a thriller about a beleaguered New York City detective who stumbles upon a cache of hundreds of guns that trace back to a wide array of seemingly unrelated unsolved murders, will be written by Trauma creator Dario Scardapane and produced by 20th Century Fox TV and studio-based Chernin Entertainment. Chernin and the studio made an offer on Gun Machine, which will be published in January by Mulholland Books, sight unseen.

Basically, this happened: Chernin Entertainment (in the form of a relentless and charming lady called Lauren Stein) bought GUN MACHINE pre-emptively, sight unseen, half a year before its publication.

This is Ellis’ second go-round with adapting one of his properties for television. In 2005 his Global Frequency series was optioned. A pilot was filmed and widely torrented but never released. The experience has left Ellis understandably pragmatic about Gun Machine.

As I learned on GLOBAL FREQUENCY way back when, tv is a series of hurdles, and nothing’s a locked deal even when you’re actually out in the world shooting the thing. There are no guarantees in television, just like any other commercial creative art.

Ellis goes on to state that they are in pretty good shape and he is taking a fairly active role in the television adaptation. Now we just have to wait until January for the book to come out.